*OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R3 Owner's Lounge

Hey! Got my Aorus x7 v6 and the machine is a beats, but like many others I'm thinking of ditching the 17 inch size in favor of something smaller, as I do some graphical design, and I want something I can use when visiting my clients. Do the aw 13 support raid on the nvme? I need one large drive, preferably 2TB or more and was thinking about putting some 1TB sm961 in it and raiding them.

 

I'm reviewing my order, looking at HotHardware's battery life on the OLED display, and feel like I might go for the 1080P IPS panel instead. I think the OLED panel might be really eating into battery life on this thing, similar to what Anandtech saw on the Lenovo X1 OLED. Sure, the OLED "pop" is amazing, but I'm not sure I'd want to trade a couple hours of battery life to get it. Anyone have any similar thoughts?

 

I thought about this the other day. I went to the review of the AW13 R2 OLED model, and that had around 4.7 hours of battery life on a video rundown test. check on below link.

http://hothardware.com/reviews/alienware-13-with-oled-review?page=6

That leads me to think that the 45W TDP CPU is not as efficient as the 15W TDP CPU of the R2, even though the R3 has a much larger battery (73Whr vs 51Whr)

The R2 1080p IPS review here shown in the link below shows a video rundown test of 6 hours 20 mins, that is a difference of 1 hour 38 mins.

http://laptopmedia.com/review/alien...he-day-and-on-the-go-gaming-during-the-night/

How all this translate to the R3 remians to be seen, but guessing there will be a battery boost going to 1080p IPS, but by how much? Depends on the efficiency of the 6700HQ quadcore with its higher 45W TDP.

 

Great research, thanks for sharing this. I think this confirms the IPS panel will see a pretty big boost given everything is equal (i.e, the extra battery in the R3 helps with the quad-core CPU but will not extend the life of the device). If the delta between the AW13 R2 OLED to IPS is 1 hour 38 minutes, isn't it reasonable to assume that the delta on the R3 OLED to R3 IPS will be about the same? I know Anandtech said their battery benchmarks were about 41% less on the Lenovo X1 OLED vs IPS.

Additionally, I do worry about Anandtech's assessment of ghosting with OLED. I do notice the puprle/green ghosting at times on my OLED phone screen, especially at lower brightness levels. When Anandtech thinks it might take "a whole new generation of OLED tech to overcome this" then that has me worried a little. But who knows, most reviewers seem blown away by the OLED.

It's a tough tradeoff for me because I bought the OLED when I had a ebates 10% coupon active, so switching to the IPS and reordering is only a minor reduction in my out of pocket costs. Granted the config I am getting here has double the RAM and I ticked the checkbox for Win 10 Pro. Losing the touchscreen is tough too.

 

I think it (delta) wont be the same because we have different CPU's , Different batteries, differing GPU also (although only relevant gaming probably).

they really are very different beasts and it really depends on how bad you need the extra time on battery, how much your going to be plugged in also. (100% when gaming i would imagine )

The OLED is the star of the show for me personally, I think with a bit of adjustment to setting you will get a movie and limited surfing time out of a charge which will be good enough for most people...

Cant see why it wouldn't the 15 and 17 can do Raid 0 on the Nvme.

Is it a deal breaker if it cant ? why not just use 2 drives.... more hassle i suppose but then you don't have the very real risk's associated with raid 0..... one bad boot one failed array and a whole bunch of work to do.... just my thoughts Raid 0 is far from a mission critical option.

And array's can just fail out of the blue with no problems on the drives themselves

 

A deal breaker? Probably not, but I like to have one drive as some of my project based tools are having trouble writing to a different place than the project folder on c: The display is probably worth the hassle anyways...

 

Well the 1060 is said to be more efficient than the 965 it replaces? But regardless, I think HotHardware says their tests do not actually utilize the dGPU, rather the iGPU (under load). And I can only draw a reasonable conclusion that given all those variables you talk about - it still makes sense based on the delta in the R2 that we will see a similar leap for the 1080P variant on the R3. I'm calling it RIGHT now - when the IPS panel sees some reviews (and likely not many) - it will get around 5.5 hours batter life.

But alas - you are right - the OLED is too hot. I think I'll stick with it given the great deal I got on it. OLED is definitely built for multimedia/gaming (but not productivity work) - so its makes sense here in the 13! Plus, touch is a nice added bonus. If only these things could run on smaller power bricks.

Does anyone know of a smaller one that will work the the R3? Can anyone link to the AC adapter compatible with the R3? I noticed Dell has a 40% off adapter sale going on right now with code FALL40.

 

First REAL review is up!
http://hothardware.com/reviews/alienware-13-r3-review-oled-and-geforce-10

 

You had me all exited there.... it's been up since Friday though as I posted it back on page 9

I personally wouldn't call it a "real" review myself as it's obviously a review sample and there's no mention on temperature details regarding thermals at all

It's When us normal folks get ours and other non affiliated people start posting I'll be real interested

 

Well damn. Sorry haha

 

Does the IPS display have a glossy screen like the OLED or is it Matt ?

 

I believe its matt/satin finish not glossy

 

Hello, does anybody know if the Alienware 13 with OLED display come with the TOBII eye tracker?

 

Only on Alienware 17

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/2/12757830/alienware-gaming-laptops-ifa-2016

 

Not true - tobii "presence detection" will come on all new AW models, it just has less features on the AW13 and 15.

Also, you can clearly see Dell specs Tobii on the AW13 feature set - I'm trying to find the chart that shows differences between models and Tobii feature set.

 

Awww man.... I hope it does. I just picked up an Alienware 17 at Best buy to test out and the Tolbii is awesome. I am still waiting on my order for the new Alienware 13. If it doesnt come with Tolbii I might return it

 

Think I'm about to pull the trigger on one of these with 512GB,and IPS display but want to know if anyone can advise on actual battery length during normal (web browsing) useage and thoughts on whether an external power bank would work on one of these, such as this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/MAXOAK-500...sr=8-2-spons&keywords=laptop+power+bank&psc=1

Was also contemplating the AW15 but purely due to the 99WH battery (but portability would likley be an issue).

Any advice on battery length is greatly received!

 

It does - it says so right on the Dell AW13 R3 web page under features.

chart here on the difference in feature set for Tobii between models:

http://www.lazygamer.net/technology...e-tracking-government-bureaucracy-bring-dell/

 

it comes with Tolbii light version not full version the 17 has.

 

Does anyone think the toshiba nvme xg3 drives will work as standard pcie? Never had any experience with these faster drives. Or much m.2 for that matter. Thinking of buying 1tb for my aw13 to come.


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Mannnnnnn that sucks!

 

I might return the Alienware 13 and keep the 17... I'll compare both once the 13 arrives

 

Thats disappointing cos I've seen some of it on YouTube and looks very useful. And besides it's just something new to enjoy my new laptop with as well as oled. A resolution bigger than fhd and touch. So I can enjoy this more without feeling like I've just upgrade the gpu in another shell.


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Can you please post some side by side pics so we can get an idea of the overall size of the laptop.

 

The presence detection you talk about is merely Windows Hello that can be used to login to Windows without the use of a password.
It comes with Tobii software pre-installed but you will need to buy a separate Tobii eye tracker to be able to use eye tracking.

 

Not correct - it includes a few other features as per my link to the feature chart. It's not just for windows hello!

 

The windows hello camera is probably a downsized Intel RealSense camera which might have some tracking capabilities. I haven't tried the tobii software on my 15 so I wouldn't know about the software capabilities. I do know that the camera is unable to track eye movement, you need additional infrared trackers to do that.

 

any other uk orders been shipped yet mine was ordered Friday and in pro production with a date of 28/11/2016

 

Just found a new video, unfortunately in Chinese. These guys did teardowns on the new 17 en 15 and will probably do one for the 13 soon.

 

I cancel the order from Dell... it is incredible they were not able to sort out a problem with the payment. I did it via HiDevolution and now the expected delivery time is 28/11. Why they need a so long period for that?

 

I ordered mine within the hour of the the product page going up (UK), and mine is still in pre production. EDD is 25/11/16. Guessing they have a cutoff for taking orders, then shipping those parts to UK to be assembled on s specific date and mass delivered at the same time roughly.

 

Same here, went on chat today and he said he had checked with his supervisor and the EDD was still 25th or before ( well we will see !)

Probably not of real interest here but mentioned the USA deal where u can $100 off an alpha and at first gave me the usual different country different deals stuff and as I was going to leave gave the 100 off a new alpha, result

Also fwiw the 13 is up on the Austrian site today with a shipping time of 1-3 days

 

Just to add, I ordered from the UK yesterday and my EDD is 30th November. Looking forward to it, its my first gaming laptop and indeed first time going back to a Windows machine since the Windows Vista days.. I'm unsure actually where to start.

 

Welcome back! It's got a bit better since vista ....

Your gonna love it

 

Well open Tobii software on your AW15 and try out the features shown in that chart - would be cool to have somebody verify what it shows there. The features shown seem to indicate it can track eye movement to some degree - at least it can tell when you are not looking at your screen and dim/shut off the screen and keyboard. Looks like you can also interact with AlienFX. Would be weird to have those tron lights change colors when you look away vs look at the screen on your AW15.

Windows hello is a facial recognition system, not iris based correct? So it seems this camera on the AW13/15 is a bit more than you describe, even if you can't do anything in games with actual high fidelity iris tracking.

 

Yeah this video was interesting - he was getting good temps but folks were saying he repasted before all this? I love the changes they made to this from last year's model. It might be just me, but I love the forward hinge design with those turbo-jet exhausts in the back. I feel a need to decal them up with flames or something. (j/k)

 

I returned my 15 about 2 weeks ago so there is no way to test this.
I work as a VR/Software developer at Dutch university where I have access to a variety of professional eye trackers and other infrared based input devices. Based on what I have seen I'm pretty sure that the hello camera isn't able to track eye movement since the lacks the sensors, you need stereo infrared emitters/cameras to do proper eye tracking.

The hello camera is more on par with (or probably is) an intel intel RealSense which can perceive depth but lacks the precision do proper eye tracking. It's very similar to kinect. If there is an eye tracking option, it wil be very very rough.

edit: if you check the 15 service manual @ http://www.dell.com/support/manuals...E94E72-5AB5-4123-BCB5-56D902F76DAC&lang=en-us you can see there is only a small infrared emitter + camera in the bezel, these are removed in the 17 since the trackers are build into the base which is (note very) visible @ http://www.dell.com/support/manuals...E94E72-5AB5-4123-BCB5-56D902F76DAC&lang=en-us

 

Even those of us that bought within 30 mins or so of the US site going live on Nov 1 have an estimated delivery date of 28th at best... So you're far from alone there. It was definitely a pre-order kind of situation, the original launch was scheduled for mid November, so the first batch should be rolling off the assembly line only now-ish.

 

Stink! Was hoping you could try it - it's not at all something I care that much about - as Windows Hello is cool enough and something I absolutely adore on my Surface Pro 4. It's so much nicer to use than a PIN. I'm also not sure if the look away and it dims the screen (or shuts it down?) would be great - but maybe when you want to really save power?

 

i have a 15 r3 and a 13 r3 on order the 15 was due 21/11 and has come forward and is now getting delivered tomorrow so hope the 13 is the same giess it depends on parts the shipping from china

 

You might ask on the Alienware 15 r3 owners thread.


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When I ordered the aw15. I never checked up on the status on it. Few days later I decided actually l'll cancel in favour of the aw13 and it was shipped and in the country. Now I'm actually checking up on aw13 and it's still saying pre-production. Wish the production was as fast as the aw15 was cos I want it now I can actually make use of my 4K to which I've never really used because the games that needed to be in 60hz was limited to 30hz on the 1.4 hdmi and there was no work around meaning I had to stop playing the game completely.


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Where do you see that? The pre-production status? Would love to check, the Order Status on Dell shows nothing.

 

I click the link from the confirmation order in my email. Beware. Sometimes it's in the USA site instead which you can tell at the bottom of the page and says shipped. Put it to uk. And it says the real status.


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Well for UK orders based on my experience using dell & Alienware and their delivery/production times if our orders don't leave "pre production" by end of play tomorrow were not gonna be seeing any 13r3's come the 25th.

Kinda resigned to the fact it probably be month end to early December as they are being so quiet about it, i cant find any one anywhere confirming their device is even in the production stage ?

why they put 3-5 shipping is beyond me and then ignore requests for info on social media....

 

I do expect shipping by tomorrow calculating that from shipped to delivered is about a week. And I'll assume that 3-5 days they put is "working days" not weekend which would make it today/tomorrow anyway (if ordered on the 10th) which coincides the weeks delivery to match up.


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I hope your right, but they normally spend a few days In "production" and they haven't even left "pre production" do you know why this may be?

FWIW, I ordered an Alpha r2 as well yesterday with an EDD of 23/11 it went from "pre" to full production this morning.

 

I'm Expecting an order "delayed" email / txt tomorrow or the day after, I'll be pleased to be wrong though....

 

The 13 r3 is slated for production on the 21st.

Don't ask me my source.

Thanks!

 

Will someone repaste the AW13 with a new paste or even liquid metal? I have done this for the AW17 R4. I'm thinking about doing it for the AW13 R3 aswell. What are your thoughts? Someone got some temperatures under load for the AW13R3 in a review?